Teaching Ideas

1. Discuss Process: Ask students how they decided to on their answers. What punctuation clues or rules helped them choose?

2. Practice Punctuation: If individual computers are available, have students practice punctuation in some of the many free online punctuation exercises available. If individual computers are not available, use a computer project to show the exercises on a screen and have students complete them in small groups. The activity could be turned into a game with small whiteboards, markers and erasers for each group.

3. Create Games: Students could take any passage from another New York Times article, the book they are currently reading for pleasure, or a class text and create a similar punctuation exercise that they can share with classmates. Here is a Learning Network activity sheet (PDF) that students could use as they work.

4. Write About the “Respite From Violence” Video and Photographs: If you’d like to continue working with the video, article and related slide show about the role of soccer in the lives of these homeless and formerly homeless young people, you might continue where the quiz, above, leaves off. Those sentences are the first few paragraphs of the article. What can students predict about what the article will be about from that opening? Why?

After they have watched the video, read the article (or had it read to them), and looked at the photos, students might create a One-Pager (PDF), a simple exercise that asks them to draw an image, choose a meaningful quote, and ask a question about a topic.

Use our questions for test preparation or just for fun. Find more here: